Category Archives: Sports

Bolivar’s Door

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Bolivars Door

Sadly, there is no image of an enormous dog named Bolivar in this picture, yet the door behind my white head remains significant.

This picture was taken in 1979, the same year the Pittsburg Pirates won the World Series.  The door was as ugly, colorful and magnificent as the Pirates’ uniforms that year.  I remember the Pirates just as I remember our dog.

Very little did I know about Bolivar.  Evidently, he was part of a grandeur litter given as a gift to one of my brothers, Glenn.  This may have been ten years before I was born. Therefore, I only knew him in his later years.  Some say he was a Newfoundland.  When I came to know him, at my age and height, I just maintained the notion he was a friendly and cuddly black bear.  Everyone in our neighborhood felt the same making all of us feel safe.

The door represented a gift granted to us by this overweight canine maintaining justice on our block. Each night, after a hearty stew, Bolivar always wished to head out for the night and scratched on the door until someone would let him outside to patrol our neighborhood.  When Bolivar was alive, I don’t remember a crime on our street.  We didn’t lock our doors back then and even left our garage door open before Bolivar, sadly, passed away.  Our dog died, but the door didn’t.  Countless times, our mother pled for a new door.  Our father, a man crazy for nostalgia, refused to replace what was left of Bolivar.

After Bolivar died, oddly, crime became a serious issue in our neighborhood.  Locking our doors and shutting the garage door became a task each night after his death.  It didn’t seem right to a boy of my age.

 

 

On the Other Hand

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“Which arm should I use?” (My mother wasn’t sure if she was right or left handed.) This was the question she asked me when I convinced her to throw me batting practice in the backyard decades ago when all my brothers and sisters were off to school and our father was at work.  My response?  “It doesn’t matter.  Just throw the ball in my general direction with either arm, and I’ll swing at it or catch it.” She did, and I did.

Baseball’s All-Star game is just a month around the corner, and nobody deserves to be on that roster more than my mother.

My mother did anything to keep me occupied before I entered kindergarten.  At the age of four, I’d already captured the swings of every Los Angeles Dodger, so I wished to display my talents outside.   Mom preferred playing board games with me inside, but after playing a solid game of “Memory” which I’d commonly win, I wanted to take my energy elsewhere.  This was also prefaced by her extinguishing sibling fights, as well as preparing breakfast, lunch, and laundry all before seven o’clock in the morning.

I would persuade her to go outside and just throw a ball at me (yes, at me), even if I had to chase it down with a bat or a glove.  She may as well have been blind folded.  Our yard was half an acre and she hit every square foot of it.  If I wasn’t running into our chicken coop, diving into a potato shed, I’d be bouncing off our cherry tree or tangled in nettles.  Not knowing where she was going to throw the ball, it became quite a challenge as well as a proper workout.  With all her might and love, she’d toss it with each arm, successfully making me happy, even though I was bleeding.

My father was a very good athlete, and whether she admits it or not, my mother is an exceptional artist.  However, growing up without even sniffing the thought of being in athletics, my mother never really had the chance to develop an interest in sports before her sons and daughters arrived.  She was a mother, and her duties were those of which I can’t possibly fathom.  Going beyond her duties as a mother, she became a companion and the teammate I required as a young and energetic youth.  I was her last dog in the litter.

 

 

Co-Laziness

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“When I wrote this book…..”

Don’t give me that crap.  Usually trying to keep my writing positive, I am going to accentuate something negative, or shall I write, realistic, today.  There are many things on this earth which annoy me: terrorists, Trump, Hillary, The Family Circus, but nothing more than a celebrity or ex sports star claiming to have written a book about themselves, unless it is written by themselves.  “When I wrote this book”……wait a minute……….who wrote this book?  You may as well begin by stating the truth.  “When I was sitting on a bar stool telling stories, some man or woman jotted down notes, then converted these stories to well crafted sentences, paragraphs and chapters all ending with, ‘wait till you hear this next one’ so I could get most of the credit by paying him or her to do so.  Only in miniature font, shall I give the man or woman credit putting in the majority of the work into said book.”

I despise the term “Co-written” unless you have two people collectively sitting down with a pen, notebook, laptop, sticky notes, journaling over a cup of coffee or a can of beer and composing sentences together.  Screen writers do it all the time.  That, I respect.  What I don’t respect is the lack of integrity some possess by not properly acknowledging those actually writing the book, which is the most difficult part.

Sadly, my father convinced me at a young age to read the book “The Mick”.  It is an autobiography about the “Great” Mickey Mantle.  With “Great” bold letters, the book’s cover read, “The Mick” MICKEY MANTLE, H. Gluck.  Who’s this H.Gluck guy?   Who cares? Naively, I believed this was written by Mickey Mantle himself.  How does this freak of baseball talent with good looks, Centerfield speed and astonishing power find the time to write a book about hitting home runs while hung over on a daily basis in Yankee Stadium?  Of course, I want to be this guy!  Drinking and dining at the finest restaurants for free in New York, hitting bombs in Yankee Stadium, making loads of money while taking your pick of any girl you want, yet still being educated enough to write an autobiography?  Chicks love the long ball, but they also love the brains.  He had it all.  In the eighth grade, I thought, “oh, yeah, I want to be him.”  Mickey Mantle didn’t write one word in that book and probably forgot or regretted every word he uttered while giving the writer complete artistic liberty.

Heartwarming as the stories may be, whether it be blaming your failures on drug, alcohol, or mental issues, please give those who write these tender stories verbal credit or a crap load of money.

This morning, I was motivated to write this piece because of something I read on the front page of the sport’s section.  Since I am overseas, and you wouldn’t know which periodical I may be referring to, I still won’t disclose who inspired me this morning, but I will tell you, he made me question his complete lack of integrity, not just as a “writer”, but as a baseball player.

If I ever told someone my silly stories and wanted them to write them down while falling off a bar stool, thus completing a book, I would insist the title be, “Co-Laziness”.

Dancing with the Pirates

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Convincing my wife to watch “Dancing with the Stars” with me the other evening caused her to look at me as though I’d finally started taking hallucinogenic drugs.  Of course, I don’t use drugs.  That still remains years and blocks down the path of my bumpy life. She was surprised, because I’d never made such a suggestion.  Late at night, it’s usually Seinfeld or Jaws putting us to sleep.

For years, my mother and one of my brothers have watched this dazzling show and find it entertaining, so I thought we’d give it a shot.  It was entertaining.  You put a pair of dancing boots on Geraldo Riviera, and it guarantees entertainment, in the most sinister of ways.   Not that I can dance, but if Geraldo’s partner just brought a carry on cardboard cutout through customs of him on stage, you wouldn’t have known the difference.  I don’t mind making fun of Geraldo.  I felt he owed me after making me suffer through three hours of mindless television regarding an Al Capone vault not providing any substance or resolution as to why we paid for television.

Years ago, when this delightful program began to air, my mother immediately took interest.  So, living in another city and speaking to her only once a week, I always wished to take interest in her leisurely activities.  Watching “Dancing with the Stars” and “Little House on the Prairie” was one of her activities.

Not giving a Yankee dime about the outcome of the dancers’ demise, I loved my mother’s commentary.  Similar to rooting for a baseball, football or basketball team you don’t give a crap about, you wish to support the ones you love, even if it involves dancing or soccer.  I wanted to root for her horse in this race.

“Who are you pulling for, mom?”

“I’m rooting for the girl with the wooden leg.”

With my sister laughing in the background, I replied with some distraction and incredulousness. “What?  Is this dancing with the stars, or dancing with the pirates?  Does she dance with an eye patch, and is the parrot on her shoulder taking lessons as well?”

Turns out, Paul McCartney’s ex wife was participating in the event, and I had no clue she had a wooden leg, or “prosthetic” now used in times following ancient Greece.  Loving my mother, unconditionally, I had to root for the lady with the wooden leg.

Seuss, Capone, and The Babe

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The other evening, I was ridiculed by my wife for reading a takeout menu in bed just before the we turned the lights off.  Laughing, she inquired, “Did your parents read menus to you at bedtime when you were a child?”  Even though the options on this Asian menu were fascinating to me, admittedly, it probably looked a little silly.  It did make me think about what they read to me at those impressionable ages.  The stories certainly varied depending on the parent.

Most people believe reading to their children before bedtime is a key ingredient to their development.  Even without having human children of our own, I tend to agree with that philosophy. Yet, it’s not just the reading, it’s that precious one on one attention you may  receive before actually having sweet dreams or selective nightmares.

My mother would fall asleep reading me two pages of a Dr. Seuss book or two sentences of a Sesame Street novella.  I watched her eyes droop while trying her best to complete a rhyme or reason.  Who could blame her?  She was awake at four o’clock in the morning doing laundry in the basement for eight to ten of her children, still remaining in the home, before they went to school.

When my mother drifted off while reading, I would creep into my father’s bedroom many nights hoping he would read to me. (At this point in their lives, my parents slept separately, because thirteen children were plenty.)  After he worked his twelve hour shift, I knew he’d be in bed reading something to relieve his stress.  It was never about a cat in a hat or Oscar being a grouch, and I didn’t care.  With him working such long hours, it was the only time to be next to my father.  My father’s bedtime reading was a little different from what my mom would choose to read to me.   He would be reading about, amongst others, Al Capone or Babe Ruth, two of the most infamous and famous people in the world.

After my well received interruption, my father would proceed to read as I cuddled next to him.  He would also delicately paraphrase…  “And then, prohibition began and while men were massacred on Valentine’s Day, Capone never harmed any women or children.”  Or, when speaking of The Babe, he might say, “Although he was known for his womanizing, immense drinking and voracious appetite for everything, he would sign autographs for any child wishing to receive one.”  Stressing the positive rather than the negative, it made me feel at ease, wishing to take a trip to baseball’s Hall of Fame, followed by a journey through Alcatraz.

Depending on which book they held while reading to me, I would either fall asleep to dreams of calling my own home run shot, bipedal cats with gigantic hats, or nightmares of a Valentine’s Day massacre.  These days, I simply wake up hungry.

Seasonal Changes

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A gal I currently live with delivered an astute observation while in my presence the other day.  She realized, after spending the last seven years of her life with me, that she doesn’t recognize the traditional seasons quite the same.  Before I took her in as a boarder, it was simply Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer.  These seasons only determined what she needed to wear on any given rainy day in Seattle.  Influenced by her meatball roommate, she began not only thinking, but living outside the seasonal box.  The seasons should not be merely associated with the weather and holidays, but something deeper, something fun, something that can be clean and dirty at the same time, yet, with the right attitude, quite intriguing: Sports.

Sports replaced the seasons for me the day my brothers informed me Santa and the Easter Bunny were a couple of phonies.  Fall was replaced with football, Winter was replaced with basketball, and Spring and Summer with baseball.  With the 2016 NFL season closing, my  roommate had a question for me.  “What do we do until March Madness?”  Neither of us giving a crap about the National Basketball Association, since their regular season games are meaningless, it took me a moment to respond.  “I don’t know.  Maybe read a book?”  Working long hours at the landfill leaves her only enough time each night to eat a hearty meal before her eyes begin to droop.  On weekends, she devotes her time to our animals and others in our neighborhood.  Years ago, she was a voracious reader, but lately, books have taken a backseat to pets and balls.

After college basketball’s March Madness, she will begin planning her next season around baseball’s Spring Training in Arizona.  And, of course, following Spring Training, she will book tickets to Opening Day.  The rest of the summer will be plastered with backyard bbq and Mariner baseball taking us clear through to the World Series and the beginning of college and professional football.  I have found the perfect roommate.

RogerHornsby

There is no “WE” in Team

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We, Us, I, and then some.  Pronouns, mixed with their arch enemy, Proper Nouns, can be a sinister and delicate bunch of instigators separating the realists from the loyalists.  They create unnecessary tension between the closest of friends, especially when it comes to sports.

I belong to an elite group of A-holes.  Rather than “elite”, perhaps I should use the word, “select”, or even go as far as to say, “pretentious”.  As a lifelong advocate for rooting athletic teams to victory, I refuse, when pulling for a team in our region, to say, “Gosh, WE really kicked the stalactites out of the those guys yesterday, didn’t we?”  Since I didn’t suit up for the team that day, or physically participate, I don’t recognize myself as being part of said team.  With due respect, I speak of the wins and losses equally.

The Pacific Northwest losses:

Me: “The Mariners are on an eighteen game losing streak.  These ten dollar beers aren’t worth showing up to watch them lose.  I’m staying home until they decide to win a game.”

Fan: “We just lost eighteen straight games. I can’t believe we don’t have a closer.  I could pitch better than these guys.”

Me: “Well, the Cougars blew another twenty point lead, only to lose again in the fourth quarter. This cheap beer was almost worth watching three hours of suspended anguish.”

Fan and Cougar Graduate:  “I can’t believe we blew another lead.  Our beer is even flat.”

Me: “If the Seahawks are winning, this city is much happier, but why do these fans insist on spilling ten dollar beers on my wife and me?”

Fan:  “Did we lose!!!???  Oh, crap!  I should have been paying closer attention.  Sorry about spilling a beer on your wife, dude.”

Some wins:

Me: “The Cougs and Huskies both won on the same weekend.  That’s unusual.   It would be nice to see them both ranked in the top twenty.  Let’s celebrate by drinking two beers manufactured and brewed by other people in the Pacific Northwest.  They sure do make quality beverages.  We had nothing to do with this hoppy flavor, but let’s  raise a glass to them as well.”

Husky Fan:  “I can’t believe we pulled out that win this weekend.  The Cougars also won.  They suck.  What’s up with that?”

Cougar Fan:  “We kicked butt this weekend.  The Huskies won as well?  Screw the Huskies.”

I have followed the Cougars, Huskies, Mariners, Seahawks, and former Seattle Super Sonics for almost forty years.  During those years, I’ve never purchased a jersey representing those teams, but I have invested in a mother load of hats, game tickets, beer, and time  justifying my stance as a true supporter.  I just don’t choose to use the term “We” when referring to the teams, and I feel somewhat vilified for not doing so.  You could argue, as a Washington State University Graduate, I choose not to use “We”, because I’m not particularly proud of their athletic history.  I’d rather maintain I just have some silly principals, or petty pet peeves, only few understand.

It is my opinion that a good friend of mine abuses his right to say “We” when referring to every college or professional team in the Pacific Northwest.  He did attend the University of Washington for a year, transfer to play tennis at Eastern Washington University, and remains a Cougar, and Gonzaga faithful, because he still has a valid Washington Green card.  I wish I had that passion and positive grassroots attitude.

The same friend, we’ll refer to him as Craig, called me the other day to apologize.  Myself being a professional apologizer, sincerely dealing them out like blackjack cards on a monthly basis, I was surprised, and somewhat nefariously excited to hear his act of contrition.  It was similar to a gift you don’t expect or lobby for during the gifting season.

Craig has been teaching Science for twenty years, and is well respected by his peers and, most importantly, his students.  Devoting years to establish impeccable credentials, he, additionally, is willing to adapt to the culture of the modern smart ass phone pupil.  Respectfully, he is not willing to accept the blame for his forefathers, and be part of their team.

Clearly frustrated, he called me with regard to a mandatory class he attended introducing a new topic required to be integrated into his class and others’ throughout the State of Washington.  Native American Culture was the topic, and they discussed how they could properly infuse Native American culture with the current Science curriculum.  With an open mind and heart, my friend embraced it, with one exception.  He took exception to the instructor, a whitey, using the pronoun, “We” each time she spoke of the atrocities the whites bestowed upon the Native Americans.  Each time she would use, “We”, he was offended, thinking, “Hey, lady, what occurred then was despicable, but I wasn’t playing for that team.”  On a much deeper level, he finally understood my stance.

 

 

 

 

 

A Tight Waist

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Leave it all on the mat.  That’s what wrestling coaches say. Well, one day, I tried my best not to do just that.

Eons ago, I was a high school wrestler.  Let me rephrase that.  Eons ago, I wasn’t a very good high school wrestler, especially when compared to some of my older brothers.  They were some of the best wrestlers in the state in their weight classes, and one was talented and dedicated enough to become a collegiate national champion.  Me?  I was merely an average wrestler, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t collect some special memories from this terrifically challenging and, without exception, for me, the most humbling of sports.  (I’ve never boxed competitively.)

To be a successful wrestler, you must have great passion for the sport or be a genetic freak of nature, combined with a screw loose. It is a sport requiring tremendous skill balanced with strength, stamina, and most importantly, a brand of toughness few possess.  I only maintained one of those prerequisites.  Clinging to that loose screw, I was pressured into wrestling.  I didn’t like the sport.  I respected it, but unlike baseball and football, I didn’t have the necessary passion or work ethic required to excel.  Strangely, I wasn’t pressured by my brothers or father.  My father wanted all of us to play basketball, and my brothers knew baseball was my game of interest.  So, I guess, along with a handful of coaches, I placed unsolicited pressure on myself.  Lesson number one:  In wrestling, that usually doesn’t work out positively.

Making the varsity team as a freshman can be considered an admirable achievement for a wrestler since you are competing with seniors.  So, wrestling varsity at 129 pounds should have provided me a sense of accomplishment.  Sadly, I didn’t earn that spot until later that year.  Before the first match, our head coach gave that spot to me only because of my last name.  It was a B.S. move on his part and would come back to haunt the both of us.  Lesson number two:  Everything in wrestling must be earned.

The night before the first match, after practice, I weighed 130 pounds meaning I would have to lose a pound and keep it off before the 9:00 a.m. weigh in the following morning.  Therefore, eating anything that night was simply out of the question.  (Losing weight properly does not include starving one’s self, but I was young, stupid, and our coach didn’t care how we lost it.)

Deciding to stay at my best friend Jeremy’s house the night before the match, I was also invited for dinner which I respectfully declined under the circumstances.  This was a basketball family I was staying with, and Jeremy’s mother, who shall remain nameless, was stunned to hear I couldn’t eat the night before a match.  Where would I get the strength to wrestle?  After unsuccessfully explaining the situation to this wonderful woman, who had treated me as one of her own since Jeremy and I became friends around age ten, she came up with a terrific solution.  Evidently, she had a magic potion which you could drink, or take as a pill, allowing you to eat whatever you wanted to, and the weight would be gone only eight hours after consumption.  Hungry as an orangutan in a banana factory, I didn’t ask questions.  I trusted her, so it was “all you can eat” spaghetti and meatballs for me that night, and I took full advantage of the proposal.

Before hitting the fart sack, she gave me this magic pill and said in about six hours, the weight would start coming off of me well before the 9:00 weigh in.  It was roughly 11:00 p.m. when I swallowed it down, and exactly 5:00 a.m. when I first felt my stomach move and then speak in an unfamiliar baritone voice.  It was about to speak volumes.  Literally, volumes.  Jeremy’s mother failed to read me the warning label: Will cause exploding diarrhea.  Not “may” cause.  “Will” Cause.

Making it to the bathroom in time, I think I did lose a pound or two, but felt a little uneasy about the slight panic I had before locking the door behind me.  I was hoping that would be the last of it.  It wasn’t.  Two more trips to the latrine before leaving their house to catch the bus for our road trip match still wasn’t settling my stomach or my nerves.  School buses don’t have bathrooms, and I don’t think depends had been invented yet, so I had to depend on my reliable backup: prayer.

Usually a pretty jovial person, I didn’t utter a word on the thirty minute bus ride.  I was concentrating more on my bowels than any test I’d ever taken in school.  My eyes squinted, and the left side of my mouth tilted as if I had just come off the most nauseating of roller coasters only to be forced to get right back on it.  Some fellow wrestlers kept asking me what was wrong, and it was all I could do to just shrug my shoulders in fear.  Moving further than that wasn’t an option.  One of the guys told me not to worry.  “You’re wrestling a senior, and he is a returning state veteran so no one expects you to win.  If you do win, you’re a stallion. If he beats the crap out of you, no big deal.”

“Crap?”  Don’t say the word “crap”.  I just wanted the bus to stop, someone to take me into the locker room on a Hannibal Lecter hand truck and leave me alone for about a week.

Butt cheeks puckering like they’d just taken their first tequila and lime shot, my prayers were partially answered.  I made it to the bathroom, but not before the janitor did.  At that point, upon release,  I felt the aftershocks may be over.  I had hoped I left the last of this unnatural disaster in the toilet.  There was a slight sense of relief while exiting the stall and walking sheepishly to the scale, quite sure I’d make weight and then move on with my life with respect and honor.

123 pounds!  One pound above the weight class below me.  You’ve got to be @#$tting me.  I was cleared to wrestle.  Convinced my odd disposition was just a case of freshman nerves, no one properly knew the trouble I’d experienced that morning.  As a freshman, I felt it wise not to disclose any information which could ignite hazing I did not need.

“Wrestling at one hundred and twenty nine pounds, from West Valley, freshman, Ben Gannon.”

Wrestling is nerve wracking enough as it is.  Add some volcanic intestines and a spotlight hanging over the mat while a hundred or so  people stare at two boys in singlets roll around the mat in a skillful melee.  (Singlets are the tight fitting required costumes wrestlers wear displaying every bulge, mogul, nook and cranny of the male physique.)  Family, friends, enemies and neighbors are about to witness a match thinking I must be nervous, because they are suffering from anxiety as well.  They have no idea.

Fortunately, after my last rendezvous with the John, I actually felt pretty decent, so when I trotted onto the mat to shake hands with my formidable opponent, for the first time, I became focussed on the match itself, and what I had to do to win.  Not knowing how long I could last, I figured I would have to find a way to pin him quickly.  So, when the whistle blew to begin the match, I think I surprised everyone in the stands and my opponent by taking him down within the first ten seconds giving me a lightning fast two point advantage.  My advantage didn’t last long as my opponent, rather angrily, reversed me to tie up the score.  Still, since I proved I was capable of scoring, I felt I could win.  At that very same moment, quite aggressively, my opponent, eerily discerning I had an achilles abdomen, reached around my stomach using what is referred to as a “tight waist”.   Imagine a cowboy cinching a saddle on a horse so the horse can’t free itself from the saddle.  Instead of a rope, an arm and hand surround your belly and twist counter clockwise while squeezing  to secure the opponent properly.

At first it was just every ounce of toxic gas being forced from my body, and I swear, my opponent stopped, as did I, wondering what may be showing up to the party next.  I was frozen with fear and held my post when he decided to do it once more.  Thankfully, those singlets are water tight, and everything left in my body was now splashing around in my singlet.  My opponent’s gasp came less than a second after mine, and I knew what my next move was.  I had no choice but to roll over and let him pin me as quickly as possible so I could get the hell out of that gymnasium before any leakage followed. It had the makings of epic humiliation, and when I rolled over, I wanted to scream at the referee to slap his hand on the mat to finish this nightmare before it could possibly get worse.  He did, and my opponent separated himself from me as if I was a scalding hot, repugnant cast iron skillet.  I couldn’t blame him.  While getting off the mat as quickly as possible hoping to avoid spillage, a teammate tossed me my sweats and I wrapped them around me heading to the locker room.  The singlet met its demise in the garbage can and when I came out to join the team for the remainder of the match, no one said one word.  It was the only genuine relief I’d felt the entire day, and much like my wrestling career, my suffering was over.

On the ride back on the bus, I did confide in a few of the wrestlers explaining what had happened.  Although it provided a terrific laugh, it never left the bus.  If they ever told anyone at school, I never was on the receiving end of nasty nicknames, so I felt very fortunate.  My remaining high school years could have been littered with gastrointestinal jokes.

I finished the rest of the season wrestling varsity at 129 pounds, won some matches, and took some savage beatings, but I can’t really recall one match specifically besides mat classic ex-lax.  I do know this.  Still remaining very close to my friend and his family, when I return to my hometown to visit them, I will never put anything in my mouth while at their house that doesn’t come off my own fork.

 

 

 

 

Beverages, Baseball and Buffett (with a side of Football)

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Comfort food for the ailing sporting Soul:  If anyone shed tears regarding the Seattle Seahawks losing yesterday, don’t look forward to next year’s football season.  Get over it, and look forward to baseball’s Spring Training.  The outcome of the games don’t mean a thing to the casual baseball observer, and nobody leaves crying, but they are fun, and everyones’ disposition is quite lovely, even if they dislike baseball.  Most people enjoy a beer and a little sunshine, followed by the sweet sound of a wooden bat cracking a ball. If they don’t, they can all go to Hell.

One of the many components I admire and respect about baseball, as opposed to the wonderful sport of American Football, is beer usually gets poured “in you” at a baseball game rather than “on you”, or your wife, at a football game. Depending on the city, that is one of the many reasons I love baseball more than football.  Without going into great detail, I also have a lesser chance of getting beat up at a baseball game than at a grid ironed, face painted, pre functional, potential catastrophe NFL game.

Football season is over for Seattle, our place of residence, and we are looking forward to Baseball Spring Training and the sun, though not the Mariners.  After opening day, we will only watch the Mariner games on television and pay more attention to the barbecue than the game.  That’s not entirely true.  My wife and I pay painfully close attention to more innings we wish to admit. That’s why we fly to Arizona for Spring Training.

Why is Spring Training so lovely.  It simply reminds me of a Jimmy Buffett concert: Great entertainment, happy seventh inning songs, and people purchasing beverages for others they have never met and not worrying about the outcome of the game or concert.  You will always have a smile on your face when you leave the venue.

Back to the Torture

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My eighth grade nemesis, Michael J. Fox, is back in the news again with the rest of the cast of Back to the Future, celebrating their 30th anniversary of the 1980’s iconic movie. The blockbuster first deposit of the trilogy Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox, made him a mega celebrity.  Back to the Future II  included a scene with Michael J. Fox staring with disbelief at a futuristic reader board surprising him with the announcement that the Cubs had finally won a World Series on October 21st, 2015.  Since this is the 30th anniversary of Back to the Future, it caused quite a stir amongst fans of the movies and especially those who know a little about baseball.  Was Michael J. Fox going to be part of this possibly prophetic movie, thus ending Chicago’s dry spell of 107 years without a ring?  Or, would it merely be another reason to get excited for the Cubs, just to be disappointed two innings into their last and most abysmal loss of the season, thus ending a very hopeful year?  The latter of course.  I couldn’t even finish sautéing an onion before I turned around to see they were down six to zero by the second inning.

I wasn’t a Michael J. Fox fan when he became a daily part of my life the year Back to the Future II was released.  This would have been around 1986.  I had to look into his dashing eyes everyday for the better part of a school year, because his face remained in the locker of my eighth grade girlfriend, and probably every other girl’s locker in our school.   This didn’t bother me at first.  Seeing him many times on his hit series, Family Ties, I felt no immediate threat.  This may have been because my father, who watched the show with us, would always comment on his size.  According our father, Michael J. Fox was only about four feet tall.  About the fortieth time I met my girlfriend at her locker, and knowing girls tend to like tall gentlemen, I, measuring in at a towering five feet six the time, informed her, very smugly and with definitive confidence, of her crush’s height.  “Ya know, he’s only about four feet tall.”  She quickly gave me a “What are you getting at?” look, which also could have been interpreted as, “What are you some sort of an A-hole” look as well.  I chose to leave the matter alone hoping that perhaps as our relationship matured, the picture might later be replaced by me.  I hadn’t graced the cover of Teen or Tiger Beat magazine, but there was a whopper of a picture of me plastered to my student identification card, displaying my awkward smile and unkempt hair.  Gladly, I would have given it to her upon request.  That never happened.  So each day, I merely hoped to find the back of her locker with Michael J. Fox’s dazzling smile missing.    That never happened either.

Wildly silly, much like most thirteen year olds, I stopped enjoying Family Ties each Thursday night and when the subject of Back to the Future came up, I lied and told others I didn’t care for the movie.  When asked with excitement if I’d seen the movie, I’d merely shrug, and say, “phh, you mean that ridiculous time travel movie with the twerp playing a guitar while acting as if he can ride a skateboard without a stunt double?  Yeah, I blew five bucks on that poorly casted piece of crap.”  I was a jealous critic at age thirteen.  I’d walk away with shame.

Michael J. Fox was now Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties, and Marty McFly from Back to the Future.  Therefore, even more pictures of him began growing in her garden of locker dreaminess.  Although I had buried the subject beneath the two of us,  I began having nightmares with Michael showing up either with a pretentious smile or sinister smirk.  He’d then taunt me.  “Do you know who I am? That’s right.  I’m Michael J. Fox.  I’m rich.  I’m famous.  I will be the cutest the guy on the planet for the next decade. And guess what?  When your girlfriend turns 18, I’ll only be in my late twenties.  Doesn’t sound like much of an age difference now, does it?  Have you even began puberty?  Your girlfriend loves me, and wake up with this.  I can get in her locker anytime I wish.”

I’d wake up with my 13 year old frustrated fists flying, catching nothing but dust in our basement. Quickly, knowing it was time to get ready for school, my mind was made up regarding the next meeting amongst my girlfriend, her locker, me and Michael’s delicate face.  Upon her opening the locker, I was going to, with great fury, punch the first picture of him I saw so hard, my envious clenched fist would not only crush his phony grin,  but it would then blast through the concrete behind her locker, thus breaking every bone in my hand.  With gnarled knuckles, I’d pull what remained of his head out of the bloody locker and throw his wadded up onion as far as a ball of paper could fly in a Junior High hallway…….about three lockers down.  That was my plan.

During my mission, not able to run through the halls for fear of being busted by intimidating hall monitors, I walked with excessive speed, dodging friends, acquaintances, teachers and janitors while seeking the locker and its squatter.  Before I could reach my destination, someone pulled the fire alarm, and there was a mad rush for the doors amidst prayer from all those attending the school, teachers included, that this was not just a drill or a prank.  Waiting outside for five minutes, much to everyone’s dismay, it was merely a prank, so we all had to return to our lockers and proceed to class.  This five minutes provided time for a moment of clarity.  If I completed my task as imagined, what would my girlfriend think of me?  What would that accomplish? If I knew her properly, she would have been embarrassed for me, and then perhaps never spoken to me again. For once, I actually thought of her.  She had always been nice to me.  We shared a very kind relationship mostly based on mutual respect for each other and inside jokes directed at friends and teachers making us the most conceited couple in the school.  We had fun together.  Ultimately, it was never her taunting me.  She had never intentionally made me feel inferior to this small movie star.  In fact, he was in her locker before we had even met that year, so actually, I was infringing a bit on their relationship.  It was time to act like I was five feet six inches tall and rise above Michael J. Fox and those pictures.

Still making my route to her locker, we didn’t have much time to talk, so I merely stopped to greet her briefly.  In the process of her opening the locker, I wondered if should bother taking a glance at my nemesis, thinking it may induce irrational behavior.  Yet, figuring I’d inevitably be tested sooner or later, I decided to get it over with.  Peering into her locker with a little anxiety, when I scanned its interior walls…………………….they were all still there.   Crud.  For some reason, I thought with my new found maturity, they would disappear not only in my dreams but in reality.  No such luck.  Still, I never even clenched a fist, and I never thought twice about that funny, talented and teenage girl’s crush again for the remainder of the year.

Every now and then, when my wife and I see an interview with Michael J. Fox, sadly suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, I jokingly make fun of her for maintaining that nauseating collage of pictures in her locker.  She just laughs and rolls her eyes.  I even texted her the other day when Mr. Fox and others were being interviewed regarding their epic movie and the Cub’s World Series Prophesy.  Randomly, I wrote.  “Hey, Britt.  You know, I still tower over Michael J. Fox.  Sincerely, your five feet nine inch husband.